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TRADE IN THE GULF

The Persian Gulf lies between two of the major
breadbaskets
of the ancient world, the Tigris-Euphrates area
(Mesopotamia,
meaning "between the rivers") in present-day Iraq and the
Nile
Valley in Egypt. Mesopotamia, a part of the area known as
the
Fertile Crescent, was important not only for food
production but
also for connecting East to West.

Rivers provided the water that made agriculture
possible.
Agriculture, in turn, enabled people to settle in one area
and to
accumulate a food surplus that allowed them to pursue
tasks
besides growing food, namely, to create a civilization.
They
chose leaders, such as kings and priests; they built
monuments;
they devised systems of morality and religion; and they
started
to trade.

Mesopotamia became the linchpin of ancient
international
trade. The fertile soil between the Tigris and the
Euphrates
produced a arge surplus of food; however, it did not
support
forests to produce the timber necessary to build permanent
structures. The region also lacked the mineral resources
to make
metals. Accordingly, the early inhabitants of Mesopotamia
were
forced to go abroad and trade their food for other raw
materials.
They found copper at Magan, an ancient city that lay
somewhere in
the contemporary state of Oman and, via Magan, traded with
people
in the Indus Valley for lumber and other finished goods.

Trade between Mesopotamia and India was facilitated by
the
small size of the Persian Gulf. Water provided the easiest
way to
transport goods, and sailors crossed the gulf fairly
early,
moving out along the coasts of Persia and India until they
reached the mouth of the Indus. Merchants and sailors
became
middlemen who used their position to profit from the
movement of
goods through the gulf. The people of Magan were both
middlemen
and suppliers because the city was a source of copper as
well as
a transit point for Indian trade. Over time, other cities
developed that were exclusively entrepôts, or commercial
way
stations. One of the best known of these cities was
Dilmun.

Dilmun probably lay on what is now the island state of
Bahrain. Excavations on the island reveal rich burial
mounds from
the Dilmun period (ca. 4000 to 2000 B.C.). Scholars
believe the
monuments on the island indicate that residents, in
addition to
farming, earned money from the East-West trade and that
other
cities on the gulf coast survived similarly.

The trading cities on the gulf were closely linked to
Mesopotamia, reflected in the similarities between the
archaeological finds in the two areas. The similar finds
suggest
that the people of the gulf coast and the people of the
Tigris
and Euphrates valley developed increasingly complex
societies and
beliefs.

The people of the gulf coast differed from those of the
interior of the Arabian Peninsula. The people in the
interior
were nomads who had no time to build cities or monuments
and no
need to develop elaborate social structures. When the
desert
provided insufficient food for their flocks, the tribes
pushed
into the date groves or farmlands of the settled towns.
Centers
on the gulf coast were subject to such nomadic incursions,
as
were the people of Mesopotamia. As a result, after the
second
millennium B.C. the gulf began to take on an increasingly
Arab
character. Some Arab tribes from the interior left their
flocks
and took over the date groves that ringed the region's
oases,
while others took up sailing and began to take part in the
trade
and piracy that were the region's economic mainstays.
These
nomadic incursions periodically changed the ethnic balance
and
leadership of the gulf coast.

Meanwhile, trade flourished in the second millennium
B.C., as
reflected in the wealth of Dilmun. In about 1800 B.C.,
however,
both the quality and the amount of goods that passed
through
Dilmun declined, and many scholars attribute this to a
corresponding decline in the Mesopotamian markets.
Concurrently,
an alternate trade route arose that linked India to the
Mediterranean Sea via the Arabian Sea, then through the
Gulf of
Aden, thence into the Red Sea where the pharaohs had built
a
shallow canal that linked the Red Sea to the Nile. This
new route
gave access not only to Mediterranean ports but also,
through the
Mediterranean ports, to the West as well.

One of the ways that rulers directed goods toward their
own
country was to control transit points on the trade routes.
Oman
was significant to rulers in Mesopotamia because it
provided a
source of raw materials as well as a transshipment point
for
goods from the East. Although a valuable prize, Oman's
large navy
gave it influence over other cities in the gulf. When
Mesopotamia
was strong, its rulers sought to take over Oman. When Oman
was
strong, its rulers pushed up through the gulf and into
Mesopotamia. One of the basic conflicts in gulf history
has been
the struggle of indigenous peoples against outside powers
who
sought to control the gulf because of its strategic
importance.

Competition between Red Sea and Persian Gulf trade
routes was
complicated by the rise of new land routes around 1000
B.C.
Technological advances in the second and first millennia
B.C.
made land routes increasingly viable for moving goods. The
domestication of the camel and the development of a saddle
enabling the animal to carry large loads allowed merchants
to
send goods across Arabia as well. As a result, inland
centers
developed at the end of the first millennium B.C. to
service the
increasing caravan traffic. These overland trade routes
helped to
Arabize the gulf by bringing the nomads of the interior
into
closer contact with their relatives on the coast.